Exit

by Belinda Bauer

  ‘Honest,’ he lied. ‘I’m fine.’

  She raised her eyebrows, but when he didn’t fill the void, she said, ‘Good,’ and pushed the file across the table at him. ‘Because you’re on the case.’

  ‘Oh!’ he said, looking down at the Cann file.

  ‘Anything wrong?’

  So much! thought Calvin, but said, ‘No. It’s just . . . I suppose I have mixed feelings about euthanasia, that’s all.’

  ‘You have mixed feelings about an illegal act?’

  ‘Yes. Well, no, obviously. But—’

  King winked at his discomfort. ‘Don’t worry, Calvin. This is assisted dying, not euthanasia. It’s a thin line, but don’t let it confuse you – this case is not some grand ideological battle. The people involved here are amateurs. Clumsy amateurs. On tightropes. That’s why people like Geoffrey Skeet need to be prosecuted. He’s not a doctor. He’s not a philosopher or a guru. He’s a retired history teacher playing God. Worse than that, he’s outsourcing it! Without training or oversight or repercussions if things go wrong. And, trust me, it’s only ever a matter of time before they do.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Calvin.

  ‘There’s not much in the file,’ she went on, nodding at the folder. ‘And there doesn’t look to be anything nefarious in Charles Cann’s will. No dodgy codicil naming Skeet as a beneficiary or anything.’

  Good, thought Calvin. Despite DCI King’s legal logic regarding the Exiteers, he couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for Geoffrey Skeet’s moral stance, and was glad not to have been disappointed by his motives.

  Yet, anyway.

  King went on, ‘Obviously, with his disability, Skeet wouldn’t have been directly involved in the death, but he’s almost certainly the only way we’re going to get to the perpetrators, so I’ll apply for ninety-six hours if I have to, so we can squeeze him as long and as hard as we legally can.’

  Calvin only nodded and DCI King looked at him more closely. ‘This is another bite of the cherry for you, Calvin.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Good.’ DCI King smiled at him. ‘I’ve got Pete on to the British Dental Association to try to track down this Dr Williams and we’ll start by checking Reggie’s story.’

  She got up and headed out, leaving Calvin staring down at the thin brown card folder on the table in front of him.

  86923 CANN, Albert

  He didn’t open it. Unconsciously, he slid his hands off the table and made them into nervous fists on his thighs.

  ‘Let’s go !’

  Slowly he rose, picked up the folder and trailed out after King.

  Calvin Bridge didn’t want another bite of the cherry.

  Especially if it meant being involved with anyone who might discover that he was his mother’s son.

  Buttons

  If Geoffrey hadn’t been arrested for a crime he’d committed, Felix would never have agreed to feed his cat.

  Feeding somebody’s cat was very different from feeding their dog. A cat had to be found before it could be fed, and yet was never where it should be when you needed it to be there. Feeding somebody’s cat was like trying to plan a mini-break in Brigadoon.

  Having said that, a large ginger cat was already sitting on Geoffrey’s doorstep when Felix got to Exeter around eleven the next morning, so the first part of the task was a breeze.

  There was only one free parking space a few doors down and, because he didn’t plan to be long and it seemed to be a nice enough area, he didn’t even lock the car or wind up his windows. Margaret would go mad. Reckless, he could hear her say.

  He was sure it would be fine.

  The house was part of a red-brick terrace. Geoffrey’s peeling front door bore a rustic wooden nameplate that read Dunloanin’, which made Felix smile. At least Margaret had been lucid when they’d paid off the mortgage. Enjoyed that moment of release . . .

  He looked under the mat and the milk bottles, but there was no key. Geoffrey hadn’t said there would be, of course. Hadn’t said anything about a key before hanging up, so Felix stepped to the right and knocked next door.

  The neighbour had a key and said she’d happily have fed Geoffrey’s cat, if only he’d asked. She seemed rather miffed that he hadn’t, so Felix soothed her feelings by telling her that he’d owed Geoffrey a favour and had insisted on undertaking the task.

  He opened the door and Buttons ran ahead of him into the gloomy interior.

  The house was stuffy, and smelled like many others Felix had let himself into over the past few years – medicinal. That was Geoffrey’s illness, he guessed. There were other, bigger clues to his Parkinson’s – a stairlift in a fetching shade of Elastoplast, and a pair of crutches leaning against the wall behind the front door.

  He went into the kitchen and opened cluttered cupboards until he found a box with a dozen pouches of cat food in it. He emptied three into a bowl and put it down, then filled a bigger bowl with Go-Cat kibble, and an even bigger bowl with water.

  ‘Here, Buttons . . .’

  He turned, but the cat had disappeared.

  You see!

  Felix looked around irritably, then relaxed when he noticed there was a catflap in the back door. Good. The cat could come and go as it pleased and eat when it fancied and, with all the food and water he’d just put down and a willing neighbour happy to take over the reins, Felix wouldn’t have to worry about it again. Geoffrey would surely be home soon. It must be evident to the police that, in his condition, Geoffrey could have had no direct involvement in the death of Mr Cann.

  Feeling pleased that feeding the cat had proved far less trouble than he’d imagined it would, Felix headed back to the front door. As he did, he glanced into the front room, which contained a sofa and a television and a little desk against the window, with a huge computer monitor on it, and a stumpy black filing cabinet on the carpet beside it.

  Felix stopped. Then turned and stepped cautiously into the room. He felt a little naughty doing so. This was beyond the scope of his permission. He’d been asked to feed Geoffrey’s cat and he’d done that. Now he should be leaving.

  But the little filing cabinet . . .

  Felix put on his reading glasses and peered at it. Each of the three drawers had a handwritten card in the label window.

  A–F

  G–M

  N–Z

  Felix glanced behind him as if he might be observed, then opened the top drawer. There were dozens of hanging files, each labelled with a name tab. He picked out one at random.

  Austin

  Inside the folder was a standard waiver form with the name and age of a Mrs Joyce Austin of Kidderminster. That was outside his patch. Felix was exclusively West Country. He’d been as far as St Ives and Bristol, but no further. He had no idea who might handle Kidderminster.

  Behind the waiver there was a will, and Joyce Maureen Austin’s signature was scrawled across the bottom of both documents.

  Geoffrey had explained to him that the waiver was designed to protect the Exiteers as they walked a thin line to stay on the right side of the law. And keeping a copy of the will was to show that no Exiteer had profited from the death of the client. Felix thought that was a very good idea.

  He put the Austin file back where he’d found it and flicked to the Cs.

  Cann.

  There was nothing in the brown card folder. There wouldn’t be, of course. He had left the will and the waiver in the briefcase on the landing. Along with all the other evidence that would probably convict him in the end . . .

  Quickly he shut the folder and put it back in the drawer.

  He opened the other two drawers and hurried through them, here and there recognizing the names of people he’d helped to ease from life into death.

  Garth. Herman. Keith. Pares. Powell. Rhys. Rodgers. Standish.

  He wasn’t
looking for anything really, but he found it anyway. The last name tab was Younger, but there was another folder behind that – although it did not have a tab on it. Felix took the folder out and opened it. Inside was a single sheet of paper, and on it was a list of names and phone numbers. It was only when his eyes were drawn to the fact that the fifth name on the list – Chris – had been crossed out, that Felix realized it was a list of Exiteers. Indeed, there he was – John, the third one down – and right at the bottom was Amanda.

  Amanda – who could easily verify or correct his own memory of events.

  Felix looked around the room and located the telephone. Without hesitation, he dialled her number.

  Hello . . .

  ‘Hello, Amanda, this is—’

  . . . can’t take your call right now but I won’t be long, so please leave a message after the beep and I’ll call you back ASAP! Especially if it’s a happy one! Bye for now!

  Felix felt foolish that he hadn’t realized it was a recording, and waited for the beep.

  Beep!

  ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Amanda? This is Fe— John. From the . . .’

  He stopped. He hadn’t thought about what he was going to say. He probably shouldn’t mention the Exiteers, or Mr Cann, or Abbotsham. Or anything that might indicate to a third party who might hear the message, what all this was about. He adjusted as best he could with, ‘. . . house. John. From the other day in the house. Where we went together. You remember. I wonder if you would mind ringing me back, please . . .’ Again he had to think on his feet. ‘Not on this number, though. On my home phone number . . .’ He gave it slowly so that she would have time to get a pen and jot the number down. Then he remembered. ‘I’m not there at the moment, but I will be back . . .’ He stretched his arm out in front of him and squinted. ‘Some time after—’

  Beep!

  He’d run out of time.

  Felix was sweating lightly. He patted his brow with his handkerchief. He thought about calling back and doing the whole thing better, but once had been stressful enough. Oh well. She had his number. When she called he would reassure her that he had no intention of involving her in any investigation. All he needed from her was corroboration to put his mind at rest, so that he could go to the police completely confident in his own memory of events.

  He hung up and looked again at the list of names in his hand. A dozen in total, but six crossed out, including poor Wendy, so he imagined those were other former members. Apart from himself and Amanda, the four left were Rupert, Delia, Connor and Jim. They were probably all fake names like his own. But the numbers were apparently real enough.

  Felix frowned at the paper. The wills and the waivers had always seemed a very good idea when Geoffrey had explained them to him. But suddenly he couldn’t help thinking that leaving such a paper trail was a very bad idea. Geoffrey was always banging on about how cautious they must all be, and yet here he was with a cabinet full of evidence in plain view in his front room.

  The thought slowly occurred to him that maybe this was why Geoffrey had asked him to feed his cat. He must have known that his neighbour would have happily done it. Did Geoffrey mean him to let himself into his house and go through his filing cabinet? Was feeding the cat some sort of code for concealing evidence?

  It made Felix go shivery inside just to think of doing anything so . . . criminal.

  Although it would be sensible . . .

  Slowly he folded the list of Exiteers into quarters and tucked it into the inside pocket of his beige jacket. He placed the empty folder back in the drawer and closed it. Then he took out his hanky for the second time in five minutes and wiped down the filing cabinet. Then opened the drawers – again using the handkerchief – and swabbed the little plastic file-name tabs too, paying particular attention to Austin and Cann.

  Covering your tracks.

  Felix ignored the sly little voice in his head. He finished wiping the Cann tag, but then unclipped it entirely and slipped it into his pocket, leaving only an empty brown folder. He stood up. Walked to the doorway, then turned and looked around from there . . .

  The filing cabinet was a magnet to his eyes.

  It was silly to leave it there. He was sure Geoffrey would agree.

  He went back over and picked it up. Tried to pick it up. It was only as tall as his knee but was surprisingly heavy. He certainly couldn’t carry it out to the car – not without drawing unwanted attention by dropping it or putting his back out. So he pushed it instead, sliding it across the carpet until it was away from the computer and beside the sofa. Then he went into the kitchen and opened one of the cupboards he’d opened earlier when he was looking for cat food. It was the tea towel cupboard. Geoffrey was apparently something of an aficionado, and there must have been forty tea towels, folded in two neat piles. Felix thumbed through them and chose one printed with the safari Big Five on it because he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to dry their hands on a buffalo.

  In the front room he draped the tea towel over the the filing cabinet, which hid most of it and made it look much more like a little side table. Felix stood back to admire his work, then put a pot plant on it as well, to discourage the curious even further. He did feel a little rude for rearranging Geoffrey’s room but felt it was prudent, given the circumstances.

  Then he closed the front door behind him and breathed a sigh of relief at a job well done.

  He returned the key to the neighbour, who said she would keep an eye on Buttons until Geoffrey got home, then walked towards his car – his own keys dangling from his finger.

  ‘’Scuse me?’

  A woman’s voice. Felix turned to look at the road. A car was slowing beside him.

  A police car.

  Felix got such a fright that he actually staggered a little. He tingled all over with shock, then went horribly cold.

  ‘Yes!’ he said. ‘Hello. Hello. What?’

  The driver was a woman. There was a passenger too. A younger man. Neither was in uniform.

  ‘Are you leaving, sir?’

  ‘What? Where?’

  She pointed to his hand. ‘Are you leaving? In your car?’

  Felix stared at his car keys for a minute and finally interpreted what she was saying to him. She wanted his parking space. That was all. That was all!

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m leaving now. I’m going home.’

  ‘Thanks,’ smiled the woman, and put her indicator on.

  He’d called her ‘sir’! He’d panicked. Should he explain? No, she’d see him sweating . . .

  Felix hurried to his car with the little plastic Cann file tag feeling like a lump of lead in his pocket.

  He got in and mirror-signalled-manoeuvred out of the spot as quickly as he could with the wheel slipping through his sweaty palms. As he pulled away, he glanced in his mirror to see the police car overshoot the space and then swing backwards into it in a single deft arc.

  Felix was so unnerved by his close call that he drove home on autopilot, unaware of anything as piffling as traffic or directions, so anxious was he about his sudden descent into the criminal underworld. Yesterday he’d killed a man. Today he’d removed what might be vital police evidence, and hidden more, and then narrowly avoided being caught red-handed. He was so distracted by his own crimes that he found himself swinging into his driveway as if he’d reached it by time travel.

  And so it was only when something terrifyingly quick and silent leapt over his shoulder and disappeared along the side of the house like a furry orange rocket, that Felix realized that – somehow – he had also stolen Geoffrey’s cat.

  Old Times

  DCI King drove to Exeter, while Calvin held on to the dash, just like old times.

  He was wearing his only suit. It was navy blue, and he hadn’t worn it since being on plainclothes duty with King, more than two years before. He hoped she didn’t recognize i
t.

  They got lucky with parking – somebody was just leaving.

  Geoffrey Skeet’s house reminded Calvin of his grandfather’s home. It smelled of school dinners and underlay, and the dingy walls of the hallway were hung with blue-faded prints of warships and kittens. There was a stairlift. DCI King folded down the seat and sat on it and fiddled with the controls. ‘Always wanted a go on one of these,’ she said, but they couldn’t get it to work, so they went into the front room where there were ugly, overstuffed chairs and a rickety desk bearing a computer monitor so giant that it cut light from the bay window. Dusty ornaments elbowed for space in a looming dresser. Every available surface was covered with either big outdated technology or something that ought to be in a drawer. But when Calvin opened a drawer he found it was already stuffed with things that ought to be in a bin.

  ‘Concentrate on finding anything that connects Skeet with the Exiteers,’ said King. ‘Names, numbers, literature, posters, you know . . .’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Calvin, then put his hands on his hips and turned a slow circle in the middle of the cluttered room. ‘This is going to take for ever,’ he sighed.

  ‘Found it!’ said King, and Calvin looked around to see her kneeling at the open drawer of a squat black filing cabinet, with a tea towel over her arm like a maître d’.

  Calvin hurried over.

  ‘Looks like these could be clients,’ King said. She plucked a folder from the top drawer and read the name on the tag. ‘Raymond Arlow. Ring any bells?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘Nor me,’ she said. ‘But there’s a waiver in here exactly like the one we found at the scene. And Mr Arlow’s last will and testament.’

  King rifled through the A–F drawer. ‘No Cann file, but I imagine that’s only because we’ve got the will and the waiver back in Bideford.’

  ‘Well, that was easy!’ said Calvin.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said slowly. ‘It’s good when it happens like that . . .’